Why Wouldn’t You Just Use The Regular Checkout, Then?

I’m a self-checkout attendant in a grocery store. One morning, a middle-aged man walks into the fairly dead self-checkout area and immediately beelines for me instead of one of the numerous open machines.

Customer: *Smiling* “I would like some help.”

Me: “All right, is there a specific register you’d like to go to?”

He doesn’t reply.

I awkwardly lead him over to the nearest open register. He is still smiling. He only has two items, so I take one and show him how to scan the barcode; some customers do have trouble figuring out exactly where to hold items so they’ll scan.

He makes no move to scan the second item; he just stands there and smiles. I swallow my annoyance, take the second item from him, scan it, and bring up the payment screen.

Me: *Tapping the card reader* “Okay, now put your card in here.”

Instead of doing so, he took out his debit card and handed it to me. Thoroughly fed up with his nonsense, I took the card, ran it, grabbed the receipt, and shoved it and the card into his hand.

He left without another word, still with that unchanging smile. I have no idea if he had something going on or if he just saw a young woman in a work uniform and wanted to fulfill some kind of fantasy. Maybe he would’ve stopped smiling if I’d handed him over to one of my two coworkers — who were over twice my age.